Chapter 4 - Friends

In the distance, a tall silhouette stands, his hands clenched at his sides. His outline is black, cutting through the scarlet sunset behind him. His shoulders tremble, and I hear the sound of his ragged breaths, gasps for air. He's suffocating, dying.

Suddenly, the sunset changes from scarlet to purple, and another silhouette emerges, this one a woman. She places her delicate hand on his shoulder, and he turns his body to face hers. Gently, she pulls his head to her chest, letting him rest his weight on her, as he clutched her clothing, nearly tearing the fragile fabric. He's breathing softer now, comforted by her arms. His shoulders no longer heave, and he stops squeezing the fabric of her clothes and instead holds her in his arms. She moves her hands to his hair, stroking and playing with it, then tilts her chin down, planting a kiss on his forehead.

He seems to say something, and then kisses her, as the sun sets completely and the sky changes from purple to deep blue, and the stars emerge.

Morning light blinds me again, but I'm less angry about that today. The dream I had last night was a strangely pleasant one.

The people in that dream seem familiar, like I've met them before, though I'm not familiar with any couples, most of my friends on coruscant were Jedi.

Perhaps it's Lux and his new girlfriend.

He deserves to be happy. He's had enough troubles in his life.

I make my way down the stairs at a skipping pace, and make my way to the mess hall. At one table, Di'ari and Chikari wait, Di'ari with her oil-stained nose in a book, and Chikari beaming over at me the moment I step in the room. At another table, Norissa, Brons, and Hoonji talk, slowly eating their breakfast.

I try to avoid eye contact.

Breakfast is a variety of sweet fruits, a grey, grainy gruel, and that blue milk again. I take generous portions of each, and sit down next to Chikari.

She's talking about something or another, I've learned not to think about the details. The few hours I spent working with her yesterday were enough to teach anyone.

I'm facing the door, and I glance quickly at the grays who enter, cataloging each one, and trying not to run into Leon.

Suddenly, my heart drops into my stomach.

Talking in a circle with another group of people, the all too familiar lizard-like body of a Trandoshan stands, his disgusting yellow eyes, and pale green skin giving him the mark of the people who captured me, and forced myself and several younglings to be hunted for sport.

After our leader Kalifa was killed, the three of us who were left barely survived with the help of a Wookie named Chewbacca. The memory makes me shiver again, and I feel like I'm about to throw up. My hands are starting to tingle like they've fallen asleep. I can't breathe.

Chikari suddenly notices, and grabs my hand, shaking Di'ari out of her reading trance, and she looks over at us, disgusted, before her expression changes to fear.

"Help," she yelps before taking my other hand.

I feel a hand on my back, and suddenly I'm pulled from the room. I have no idea where I'm going, I can barely see. My chest hurts, like I'm having a heart attack, and I'm gasping for breath.

"Ahsoka, listen to me," a soothing voice calls. "It's over. You're not there, you're here, with us. Come back to the present! Ahsoka, don't be fooled by the past."

I'm still gasping, clutching at my throat, but my vision begins to clear. A pair of deep brown eyes cut through my vision, fear and determination in them.

"Ahsoka, can you hear me," she asks.

I nod my head, or at least I try to.

"You need to breathe. In through the nose, out through the mouth."

"I... I c... I can't," I force out, wasting what air I had in my lungs.

Suddenly I'm wrapped in her arms, and she pulls me onto her lap, stroking my montrals, and hums quietly.

"Breathe," she whispers, soothingly.

My heartbeat slows, and I gradually calm down.

"Thank you," I whisper.

"It's no problem, whispers Norissa, kissing my forehead as I sit back up. "What happened?"

I sigh. "The Trandoshan."

She lets go of me, suddenly. "Do you have something against Trandoshans?"

"Yeah," I reply, "I do. They kidnapped me and several younglings and hunted them for sport. Only myself and two other younglings survived."

She bites her lip. "Oh."

"Just seeing a Trandoshan now brings back memories of shivering in he cold, waiting for sunrise to come, and dreading that dawning. It makes me remember holding Kalifa in my arms as she died right in front of me, and the face of their leader, whose son I accidentally killed, and for that bore a terrible grudge against me, and nearly killed me."

Norissa looks at me, her eyes filled with sadness for me. Again, she pulls me into her arms, rubbing my shoulders. "It's okay, Ahsoka. Kraas won't hurt you."

I nod, wiping my tears away.

She smiles at me, putting her hand on my thigh. "You can always talk to me if you ever need some help again."

"Thanks."

"What was that all about?" Asks Di'ari, with several screws sticking out of her mouth. "What got into you this morning?"

"Di'ari!" Chikari hits her over the back of the head with an owner's manual. "What a rude thing to ask!"

"No," I say, "it's fine. It's just some PTSD I guess. A panic attack."

"Yeah, I know, but what happened," Di'ari nags.

"I don't want to talk about it," I mumble, focusing back on fixing this compresser.

"it was Krass, wasn't it? He was nearest the door," says Chikari. "You know, Krass is a very nice person, you should get to know him."

"I'm not making a judgement on his character," I protest. "It's just that a few of his people were cold-blooded killers, and I happened to come into contact with them, which kind of shaped my first impressions of his kind in general."

Chikari scoffs. "You can't generalize!"

I slam my tools and the compresser onto the workbench next to me, hard. "I don't need any advice from you."

I storm out of the room, my anger flaring up in my cheeks. How could she? I thought she understood.

I round a corner too quickly, and feel my weight fall out from under me. Suddenly, I'm on the floor, a bad ache surging through my thigh and ankle.

"Agh," I choke, before tears rush to my eyes again, and spill over.

"Ahsoka," a familiar voice calls.

"Hoonji," I croak, "help me up?"

He bends down and picks me up in his arms, and starts marching off with me.

"I can walk," I protest, but he keeps carrying me. "Let go!"

"Not until we check your ankle, that looked like a bad fall."

I sigh, taking note of his stubbornness. He smiles at me, then looks back at the room ahead of him.

"Brons doubles as the medical officer here, as well as our highest ranking military officer. He'll have you fixed up in a jiffy."

I'm sitting atop the cold metal table, my ankle now throughly wrapped, as Brons checks my vitals. It takes longer than I'm used to, but I try to be as patient as possible.

"I know what you're thinking," he says.

"What?"

"You're thinking about how much more efficient it would be to have a medical droid instead of an actual doctor here."

I nod. "I just don't understand why anyone would prefer to keep the doctor. It's within everyone's capabilities to make mistakes, but if you're programmed not to, then that's not a risk."

"Maybe so," he sighs, "but we as a group can't afford to buy and keep a medical droid running. It's last maybe a year, and then we'd have to go back to the basics. Besides," he laughs, "I'm better than any medical droid you can buy."

I laugh. "That's pretty high praise for a runaway Jedi. Prove it."

He grins. "I promise your ankle will be better before you leave. I just need to get the assistant and Norissa in here to check on you and you can go."

"Thanks, doc," I say, saluting him and laughing.

"Lemme just get the assistant," he laughs, leaving the room.

I'm suddenly repulsed by the individual who enters.

His scaly green skin resembles that of a large snake or lizard, his eyes the same shade of golden yellow as the eyes that stared me down in the forest all that time ago.

"Ill kill you," it screams. "You killed my son!"

All at once, my heartbeat quickens, my breath rushes away from me, and my vision blurs.

"Norissa," shrieks Krass, panic evident on his voice.

The greenish-yellow blur before me must be Norissa, as she takes my hand and tries to calm me down.

"It's okay," she soothed, "it's just Krass. He's not going to hurt you."

"K-Kalifa... Trandoshan... Dead... M-M-murder," I stutter, my words scraping their way out of my mouth. I can't breathe. My shoulders heave and tremble.

"Krass," Norissa says, "I need you to help me?"

"How," he yelps.

"I need you to hold her hand."

I shudder at his touch, the scaly, rock-like skin making contact with mine, and my vision goes black. I feel Norissa wrap her arms around me, she pulls my head to her chest, and whispers calming words.

"It's okay, it's okay. You're safe now."

My vision comes back slowly, still blurry. I can make out the dusty color of Norissa's shirt, and the green complexion of Krass. I can feel his heartbeat now, pounding against my own, as my breath slows. He squeezes my hand, as if he's pulling me out of my panic attack.

I can make out his face now, his soft green scales, his kind eyes, and his mouth, down turned with worry.

"Ahsoka," calls Norissa. "Can you hear me?"

"Yeah," I mumble. "Yeah, I can hear you."

My visions returns to normal, and I watch as joy returns to Krass' face as he realizes I'll be okay.

"Ahsoka, I need you to stay here for a minute," Norissa says. "Krass, keep an eye on her for me."

Krass lets go of my hand, and then moves away.

I take a deep breath.

"You were kidnapped by the hunters, weren't you?"

I whip my head to look at Krass. "I was. Do you know about them?"

"I was taken there, though, not as a victim. My father was a hunter. I watched him kill many Jedi."

"But, weren't you a Jedi?"

"Not in his eyes," he sighs. "I had to run away in order to complete my training."

Silence falls between us, as we begin to understand each other.

As I scale the stairs to my room, Chikari shouts up at me.

"Ahsoka, wait!"

Reluctantly, I stop as she makes her way up after me.

"Ahsoka, I'm sorry."

"Sorry for what," I snap.

"I'm sorry for losing my temper at you. I don't know what it's like to live through a war, and I dorm know what it's like to be taken away from the people I love. I want to make it up to you and try to understand you before you go."

I smile. "Chikari, I shouldn't have gotten angry at you over something you couldn't control. You didn't understand, and I should have just calmed down and reconciled before I stormed off. I'm sorry."

Chikari is visibly relieved. "So, friends?" She extends her hand to me for a handshake.

I hesitate. I don't usually make these kind of commitments to people I've just met.

Finally, I take her hand.

"Friends."